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Why Steve Ballmer Should Resign
,----[ Quote ]
| Remind me again why Steve Ballmer is CEO of Microsoft? He's got no vision, no
| charisma, no engineering cred and no outside experience running a company.
| Ballmer himself admits to not being good at negotiating. And now his
| deal-making and decision-making skills are being questioned. (Plus, he looks
| like an 80s-era "Spider Woman" comic book villain and is more famous among
| Microsoft customers and detractors alike for his "Dance Monkeyboy" videos
| than his achievements as CEO of Microsoft.)
`----
http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/columns/executive_tech/article.php/3745546
There's no-one to replace him because all the other seniors left the company
quite recently. Other employees move over to 'the other side':
Microsoft Ex-Pats Developing Open Source Software Outside of Redmond
,----[ Quote ]
| Last week Black Duck Software run by a former Microsoft employee, Doug Levin,
| acquired Koders an open source repository and search engine. Likewise
| Software, the maker of an open source unified authentication product was
| started by some ex-Microsoft employees. Starting as a proprietary software
| maker they eventually moved to a open source development model and have
| gotten involved with the popular open source Samba project. Finally,
| MindTouch an open source wiki developer is run by ex-Microsoft employees and
| has seen great success with their open source project. All the companies
| mentioned above are run by ex-Micrsoft employees and all seem to be having
| decent success in open source.
`----
http://socializedsoftware.com/2008/05/07/microsoft-ex-pats-developing-open-source-software-outside-of-redmond/
Yesterday:
Is Microsoft Aura Fading?
,----[ Quote ]
| Yesterday's early relief rally reversed, and Microsoft's value has now fallen
| by more than $30 billion since it unveiled its bid for Yahoo on February 1.
`---- ^^^^^^^^^^^
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121004447596669953.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
Recent:
Does Ballmer Need To Go?
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft’s dramatic decision this weekend to withdraw its offer for Yahoo
| and not pursue a hostile bid raises a whole host of questions. What happens
| to Yahoo now? What happens to Microsoft? Or is this just a tactic to drive
| down the price of Yahoo’s shares so that Microsoft can go hostile with a
| lower offer? And if the deal really is dead, does Steve Ballmer need to start
| looking for a new job?
`----
http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/05/04/does-ballmer-need-to-go/
Hey! Ho! Time for Ballmer to Go?
,----[ Quote ]
| The investment community likes Steve Ballmer. He's competent, aggressive and
| occasionally crazy. He's been at Microsoft's helm for eight years, during
| which time the technology landscape has drastically changed several times
| over. And although Microsoft hasn't always kept up, it has remained
| ridiculously profitable.
`----
http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/04/betting-on-ball.html
Make the wrong choice on Yahoo, and Ballmer could lose his job
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft's board yesterday gave CEO Steve Ballmer "broad discretion" to
| decide on his own whether Microsoft should raise its offer for Yahoo,
| initiate a proxy fight for the company or walk away, the Wall Street Journal
| reports. That means if Ballmer makes the wrong call, it could cost him his
| job.
`----
http://valleywag.com/386130/make-the-wrong-choice-on-yahoo-and-ballmer-could-lose-his-job
Microsoft Should Fire Steve Ballmer, or Hire SuperNanny. Or Both.
,----[ Quote ]
| What should happen is this: Ballmer should re-canvass Yahoo's largest
| shareholders and ask what firm price in cash would get them on-board, and
| then offer it. No more futzing through middlemen bankers, just ask and
| deliver. I doubt this will happen -- Ballmer is caught up among internal
| politics, his own increasing impotence, and childish Yahoo intransigence --
| so he is stuck and looking more and like someone who keeps threatening to
| ground his kids, but never does. As we have all learned from watching
| SuperNanny, the trouble is rarely with the kids; it's almost always the
| nitwit parents.
|
| Such is the case here, so my recipe for action? Fire Ballmer. Think how
| quickly things would change at Microsoft, and in this deal. And then hire
| SuperNanny and film some Microsoft meetings. I'd watch.
`----
http://seekingalpha.com/article/74460-microsoft-should-fire-steve-ballmer-or-hire-supernanny-or-both
Steve Ballmer's Nine Year Retirement Plan
,----[ Quote ]
| Bill Gates is retiring from Microsoft this year and the exec he left in
| charge, Steve Ballmer, is ready to leave in nine years.
`----
http://blogs.eweek.com/cebit/content/cebit/steve_ballmers_nine_year_retirement_plan.html
Does Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer need an intervention?
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer may need an intervention before this obsession
| with Yahoo–which is really about an obsession over Google–spins out of
| control.
`----
http://blogs.zdnet.com/BTL/?p=8597
Is Microsoft's Ballmer a bad dealmaker?
,----[ Quote ]
| The bid for Yahoo that helped sink the market value of Microsoft (MSFT) by
| more than $20 billion in one day in early February is one of the latest in a
| string of acquisitions and major investment stakes Microsoft has initiated
| since CEO Steve Ballmer took over in 2000 that have been punished by the
| stock market as misjudgments.
|
| "Some learn more quickly than others. It doesn't look like Mr. Ballmer is
| learning that quickly," says UCLA Anderson School of Management professor
| Richard Roll, lead author of a study that analyzed 11 years of merger and
| acquisition announcements by 2,589 CEOs at 1,740 U.S. companies.
`----
http://www.usatoday.com/tech/techinvestor/corporatenews/2008-04-23-ballmer_N.htm
UCLA Professor: Microsoft CEO Ballmer a ‘hubris-infected serial acquirer’ with
dismal track record
http://macdailynews.com/index.php/weblog/comments/16916/
Bear Stearns's Advice To Microsoft
,----[ Quote ]
| Co-founder Bill Gates can't be thrilled with watching
| Ballmer drain the company's cash. He didn't get so rich by buying at the top
| ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
| of the market.
`----
http://www.forbes.com/technology/2008/03/17/microsoft-bear-stearns-tech-ebiz-cx_ec_0316msft.html
Microsoft says to borrow money for Yahoo deal
,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft Corp said on Monday it may borrow money for the first time in its
| history to fund a portion of its $44.6 billion unsolicited offer for Yahoo
| Inc.
`----
http://www.reuters.com/article/companyNews/idUSN0455692920080205
Microsoft's DreamSpark – What a Giveaway
,----[ Quote ]
| The rest of the $44.6bn (£22.3bn) deal would be financed with an undisclosed
| amount of credit.
|
| What that means is that it must squeeze as much money as it can from its
| operations to fund that debt and still pay dividends to shareholders, who
| will be looking for some payback from the Yahoo takeover. Giving away
| software is the last thing it would want to do in these circumstances, and
| the DreamSpark announcement shows just how worried it is about the future.
`----
http://www.linuxjournal.com/content/microsofts-dreamspark-%E2%80%93-what-giveaway
Will Deal-Making Chiefs Ever Learn? Maybe.
,----[ Quote ]
| Mr. Ballmer was considered a “hubris-infected” chief under the study’s
| definition, because of Microsoft’s value-destroying deal to invest $100
| million in Vertical Net in 2000. He followed up with deals for Intertainer
| and BroadBand Office, which were also followed by below-market returns for
| shareholders.
|
| In all, Mr. Ballmer made 15 deals between 2000 and 2002, with an average
| market-adjusted shareholder return of negative 4.59 percent.
`----
http://dealbook.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/04/08/will-deal-making-chiefs-ever-learn-maybe/index.html
Mergers of Corporate Giants Not Likely to Benefit Consumers
,----[ Quote ]
| “There is little if any evidence that increased corporate size in
| already-large national and international firms produces greater technological
| innovation,” writes Elizabeth Sanders, Professor of Government at Cornell
| University. “To the contrary, it probably leads to less, given lower
| competitive pressures, and the starving of research in debt-burdened
| companies.”
`----
http://mslawnews.wordpress.com/2008/04/09/corporate_mergers/
Can Ballmer pilot Microsoft through a changed tech course?
,----[ Quote ]
| Can Ballmer steer Microsoft out of the roadblocks?
|
| The highly competitive Ballmer, you might say, is the man who cried "nice."
| And like the boy who cried wolf, no one believed him. The software giant's
| attempt to make nice with much of the developer community by opening up its
| APIs for key products was greeted with a jaundiced eye by regulators at the
| powerful European Commission.
|
| However sincere Microsoft's stated change of heart may be, it is becoming
| clearer and clearer that Microsoft -- which knows it has to change -- is
| still struggling to find a fresher path.
|
| What's a poor CEO to do?
|
| Now that Bill Gates has effectively left the building, Ballmer is free to
| transform Microsoft, a job made all the tougher by the enormous reservoir of
| mistrust the company has engendered over the years.
|
| Case in point: the open APIs. Microsoft will give its competitors free access
| to the application programming interfaces and protocols it uses to ensure
| interoperability between its own products, a very significant change in
| business practices.
`----
http://weblog.infoworld.com/tech-bottom-line/archives/2008/02/microsoft_open.html
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